Table of Contents
Welcome to the first Season in Review! Each month new cards and locations are added, cards are balanced and reworked, and metas are shifting and evolving. Everyone has their hot take on all of these things leading up to and after release, but there isn’t a lot of reflection or review of these changes after each season. So toward the end of each season, we will review what happened that season, break down these changes, analyze them, and give an overall review on how good this season actually was!
Next Season Spider-Versus starts June 6 at 3 AM GMT! Check out all the details here:
The New Cards
Nebula
Decks with Nebula
Nebula was the first card released this season (in the battle pass) and has made her mark as a new staple 1-drop! Her ability to add power without needing to add cards or lose energy by skipping makes her a go to choice in deckbuilding.
Nebula has put “Lockdown” decks into a competitive place with her synergy with Storm, Spider-Man, and Professor X. However, her Guardians of the Galaxy theme has yet to pull the other Guardians of the Galaxy cards (such as Drax) into the meta along with her. This card definitely ranks among the best 1-Cost cards in the game and will continue to push the meta.
Iron Lad
The second release of the season. While he doesn’t create any new archetypes, he is an incredibly powerful tool for a multitude of decks to enhance their consistency. Combo this with Zabu and play Iron Lad on turn 3 and you get some spicy plays! How about turn 3 Doctor Doom, Professor X, Iron Man, or even Galactus! His potential for snowballing games is incredible, making him a highly sought after card that has helped shape the meta.
Howard the Duck
Decks with Howard the Duck
A very powerful 1-Cost with a great ability!… that not many people want to pay 6,000 tokens for. Howard is a great way for you to match that Iron Lad with a great ability, make sure Jubilee pulls a good card, or simply plan your turns better! I believe this card will be everywhere once it enters Series 3, but with so many good cards this season, this one gets overshadowed.
High Evolutionary
Decks with High Evolutionary
One of the most highly anticipated releases in a while, and rightfully so! Despite its rocky launch, High Evolutionary has already warped the meta in a multitude of ways. He has created not only his own new deck archetypes, but has found homes in several existing decks to make them stronger!
Decks like JaneJaw, Lane Lock decks, and Thanos decks have risen to new levels with High Evo. The biggest drawback of the card is his horrible stats, but his evolved cards are so good that it is worth the near dead draw he creates. Definitely a card worth the title of “Big Bad”!
The Living Tribunal
Decks with The Living Tribunal
Our only bad card this season. While the idea of the card sounds powerful, The Living Tribunal has an incredibly hard time beating most decks. There just isn’t a need to win all 3 locations, so most players dedicate to two and sacrifice one lane. By splitting all of your power, you just make trying to win a single lane a challenge. I’m sure this card will see meme play and create some great twitch highlights, but it is unlikely we see this card becoming any kind of staple in its current form.
Bonus Card: Kitty Pryde
Decks with Kitty Pryde
Kitty finally got her premier after the long delayed re-release of the buggy card. While players argued that the new version just simply wasn’t any good compared to her original design, her carrying Bounce decks to the top of the meta changed everyone’s minds. And with the card being added to all players collections, the excitement for the card can be enjoyed be all!
All together, this season’s cards are mostly stellar! With so many unique and strong cards introduced, this season will very likely continue to shape the meta for the foreseeable future.
Locations Added
Milano
Yet another restrictive location that got mixed reviews. You either loved the different style of restrictiveness, or you hated that yet another location doesn’t let you play cards. The developers seemed to have agreed with the latter statement, since they removed the location from the game soon after and will give it a new ability.
Fogwell’s Gym
Decks with Fogwell’s Gym
The only location with a shorter lifespan than Milano! This one day surprise location was the highlight of the season, giving less randomness to games for a brief moment and giving players some extra boosters to go with it. In the official Marvel Snap Discord, Glenn revealed this location will return in the future!
Deep Space
The newest location that flooded the internet with “why didn’t my card work” posts. As a hot location, it was a goldmine for Zero decks or sneaky Quake decks. In regular rotation, this may offer interesting gameplay as it doesn’t totally restrict gameplay, but does require sacrifice to play there. That is unless you place ongoing cards there and witness the bug that shipped with the card.
In total, the locations added this month stretched to both ends of the spectrum, with one being so bad it was removed, one being an OK location, and one being a fan favorite! Still an overall bad season for locations, as the fan favorite was only temporary and the only remaining location is just OK.
Balance Updates
With this season being the trial month for weekly balance updates, a lot happened! Some changed were meta defining, others were a bit lackluster. Let’s analyze it:
May 4th OTA
Decks with The Collector
Decks with Luke Cage
Orka was the biggest winner this week, gaining a nice stat boost that actually made him playable! While not meta defining, it still brought the card into a place where ongoing decks are giving him a shot in their selections. The Collector and Luke Cage 1 power buffs also happened in this time. A simple, but welcome change.
With High Evolutionary running everywhere this season, Luke Cage definitely has become more meta and this small change has definitely helped handle the new card(s).
May 11th OTA
Decks with Drax
Decks with Rockslide
Decks with Venom
Decks with Enchantress
Venom was the star of this update, gaining +2 power to his stats, though it hasn’t seemed to bring him into any meta decks. Drax also saw a… let’s call it a text change, because it wasn’t a buff, it wasn’t a nerf, and nobody will continue to use this card until it gets an actual buff it deserves. Enchantress lost her bonus power she received in a previous OTA, bringing her to a middle ground 5 power. And Rockslide got a similar nerf moving down a power. Overall, a low excitement update.
We also saw 7 locations get reduced frequency of appearing so the “dynamic of locations” stays healthy.
May 16th Patch
Decks with Kitty Pryde
This is the update that brought the highs of Kitty Pryde, and the lows of the new customization layout. While the idea of mixing avatar, title, and Card Back for each deck sounds nice, the unintuitive nature of the UI leaves much to be desired. We also saw a huge change this update to ranked and the cube system, lowering cubes needed to climb down to 7 from 10.
We also saw changes this update to the card acquisition system, which has brought much controversy. It has yet to be determined of these changes are meaningful until the upcoming Conquest mode launches and new cards begin entering Series 3 or 4 directly. This same change also kept highly anticipated drops from occurring, keeping a highly meta card Darkhawk from being widely accessible in Series 3.
In the same update, we also witnessed the death of multiple classic meta decks: DeathWave and DoomWave. After the change to Wave’s text, the meta would be forever changed, for better or worse. We also finally saw a change to Crystal!… that nobody has yet to find a use for.
May 25th OTA
Decks with Black Bolt
Decks with Stature
Decks with Negasonic Teenage Warhead
Decks with Invisible Woman
The latest blow to the meta- nerfing both Stature and Black Bolt at the same time to target the same deck. Developers like Glenn claimed it was because both cards were among their top performers and were above their threshold for when a card should be nerfed. Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Invisible Woman also saw a slight increase to their power, however it has yet to give players a reason to use these cards more.
This OTA also brought the huge news that Milano, Plunder Castle, and Sandbar have all been removed from the game, and will not return in their current state. This came after developers heard your issues that there were too many restrictive locations, even after reducing the frequency of several locations, so your voices are being heard!
Overall, the updates this season were more impactful with nerfs than buffs, but definitely helped shape the meta. The new additions to the game are nothing to get excited about, with the exception of cards dropping directly to Series 3 or 4 at launch. Hopefully next season we begin seeing cards that don’t get played getting some well-deserved buffs.
The Meta Evolution
At the start of the season, we saw Sera Control and Lockjaw Thor carrying the top tier decks. Very soon after, we saw Good Cards Stature and DoomWave Nebula overtake Lockjaw Thor for tier 1. These top spots yet again shifted the following week with the massive wave nerf combined with the release of Kitty Pryde. That said, Tier 1 still holds a undefeated season deck of Sera Control, with Iron Patriot following behind as a strong second.
Despite a constant Tier 1 deck, Tier 2 has been plenty viable and has a very healthy array of decks in it. Many decks have had their time to shine this season, with new High Evolutionary decks, Bounce decks, discard decks, Sera Surfer decks, Stature decks, Darkhawk decks, and even Galactus decks.
While many people grieve the loss of Wave-centric decks, the meta has definitely headed towards a healthier place, offering plenty of counterplay and strong game plans that aren’t overly oppressive.
Season Review
The strongest points of the season are definitely the new cards. They brought a breath of fresh air to the meta and allowed for fun new decks to be created, as well as make older decks more competitive. Even the less exciting cards brought some level of excitement to the table! This leaves the season with an exciting 10/10 for new cards.
The meta, while fairly monotone at the start of the season, evolved heavily over the seasons lifespan. An evolving meta is the most fun, as it keeps things fresh and makes players adapt more often! A meta like that is definitely worth noting, so a matching score of 9/10 is awarded for Meta Evolution.
The low points of the season are definitely the locations added. While Fogwell's Gym was a fun addition, it’s hard to justify a good season of locations when the best location is a one day event, the worst location is immediately removed from the game, and the one remaining location is just “fine”. This leaves a location score of 2/10.
The updates to the game this season follow a similar suit. No real exciting buffs were added, the nerfs are controversial, and no exciting new content was added. The new card acquisition could be interesting in the future, but currently keeping cards in Series 4 that should have moved down to 3 definitely put a damper on any excitement. The customization changes also needed more time in the UI oven before being shipped. The only saving grace here is the balance changes did effect the meta positively by creating change, so a score of 4/10 is awarded.
Altogether, I feel the season overall deserves a rating of 7/10! The season was full of exciting cards and a fresh meta, which helped bring loads of new fun despite poor locations and lackluster updates.
Do you agree with our assessment? Have a different opinion? Make sure to let us know in the comments!
This was a good write-up. Forgot how many changes occurred in one month.